


Brave this night and have faith

by Ischa



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Canon Compliant, Drugs, Gen, M/M, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-04
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-13 14:09:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ischa/pseuds/Ischa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which John is kidnapped by Doctor Crane.  </p><p> <i>“Hope, John,” Crane says, his lips so close John can feel his breath on his skin, “is the cruellest thing of all.”</i><br/><i>Crane might be on to something here, John thinks.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Brave this night and have faith

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this prompt](http://tdkr-kink.livejournal.com/2798.html?thread=1176814#t1176814) over at the tdkr_kink meme.  
> Title by Janelle Monea.  
> Post movie(s).  
> My thanks to mockingj91 for the beta.

**~one~**  
John had been stupidly careless. He realises it as it happens. He had been stupidly careless because the city was saved, but it's an illusion and he should have known better. 

~+~  
He wakes up groggily to voices, muffled and incomprehensible. He isn't sure if it's him or if they are too far away to make out words. It doesn't really matter. Either way he is in deep shit and it's his own damn fault. He would smack himself over the head if he could, but his hands are bonded behind his back and his head hurts and he needs all his strength anyway if he wants to get out of here alive. And he wants to get out of here alive. He didn't survive the occupation; he didn't survive the bomb to die here. Wherever here is.  
He tries to get up and hears footsteps on the sidewalk, concrete whatever. It smells damp. 

“Ah, you're awake. I was so disappointed they didn't bring you in earlier.”

“Crane,” John says. 

“Doctor Crane,” Crane answers. “You were so lucky during the occupation. How could you think it would last? In a city like Gotham? Without the Batman. I admit I would have liked him here, but you are the next best thing.” 

He even sounds sane, John thinks and that is the first pointer that something is seriously wrong. He takes a deep breath to calm down and hears Crane chuckle.  
Oh shit, John thinks. 

~+~  
There is nothing at first and it's not like he could not breathe. That just isn't an option. It must be something else then, John thinks. A different poison. Still a gas, because he inhaled it. He wonders how long he has before he goes crazy. Before he dies. 

“It will be okay,” Crane says.  
It's anything but John thinks. 

 

 **~Two~**  
It starts with voices and at first he thinks they are real but then he realises they're the voices of his parents. Arguing. He remembers. It was in the kitchen and his father had been drunk and his mother had been in tears. He shakes his head.

“It's not real, it's not real, it's not real,” he repeats. 

“But it will be. Soon,” Crane answers. His voice is so freaking pleasant, as if you could tell him all your secrets and nightmares and he would make them go away. Make things right again.

“Someone's going to look for me.”

“Who I wonder?” Crane asks and John can feel him leaning over, can feel Crane's body-heat and his breath on his skin. “You threw your badge away. The Batman is dead – what a shame, really. You are alone. You have no one who would miss you.” 

It's not true, he wants to say, it's not true. Gordon will look for him. Gordon cares for his men, but John isn't one of them anymore. Crane is right. He is alone and he will die here if he doesn't find a way out. 

~+~  
The darkness is worse than anything that is in his head. The darkness makes him feel helpless. Every noise makes him jump. His heart-rate speeds up. It's like a nightmare he can't wake up from because he is already awake. 

“I wonder what it is in your head? You should tell me, John. You can tell me. That's why we're here. To talk.” Crane pauses and John keeps silent. He can't engage here, because it would be a testament to the madness. “I imagine you have a lot to talk about. A lot on your chest?”  
John doesn't say a goddamn word.  
“Well, I see, you aren't there yet. It's okay. Everyone has their own pace. And we have so much time on our hands now, don't we John? All the time in the world.”

~+~  
“So John, no girlfriend? I wonder why that is? Is it because your father was a criminal and your mother was never really happy with him? Did that screw you up?” 

“Shut up,” John says. He feels weak, even though he had eaten. Crane obviously wants to keep him alive for some twisted reason. 

“Or is it that you lost your heart to someone who doesn't love you back?”

“I said shut up!” 

“Ah, it's tragic love then. It's good we're making progress. After all I am here to help you,” Crane answers calmly. 

And John catches himself just there teetering on the edge. He nearly believed Crane's crap. John isn't in love with anyone and he doesn't need anyone to tell him what he feels is okay or not okay or what- the- fuck- ever.  
“Go away,” he says. His voice sounds worn out and small to his own ears. Like a kid's that has been screaming for hours. To his surprise Crane does leave him alone.  
But he'll be back, because he always is. 

~+~  
During the time he is alone in the darkness, hands still bonded behind his back, (they only take the handcuffs off when he is allowed to eat, piss or shower) he tries to find out where he is.  
He would bet everything he has it's Arkham. After all Arkham has been abandoned for years and all the criminals sane or not had been sent to Blackgate Penitentiary, and Bane had freed them all. Including Crane. John has heard about the trials as well.  
Arkham is also home for Crane. It's where he experimented on the inmates. Crane is insane himself, although John's brain insists on trusting him from time to time. He fights it, but has no idea how much longer his own sanity will last in a place like this.  
The darkness, Crane and the drugs are wearing him down.  
Batman's death is wearing him down. 

 

 **~three~**  
John's read up on the Asylum in his spare-time. He wishes now he hadn't. All the deaths, all the lost souls. All the madness. It's like he can feel it creeping up on him, like a blanket around his shoulders, like a lover's icy touch. It makes him shiver. It makes him want to scream. And there is always Crane, talking, whispering, stealing his secrets. John refuses to talk to him.  
He can't win. 

~+~  
“I bet it's a guy,” Crane says. “People like you, and I mean the police in this case, are messed up about being in love, being in lust, having any kind of feelings for a man. It tears you apart inside.”  
He's sitting maybe two meters away from John. The blindfold has been gone for days now, but it's so dark where they are, where he is kept captive that it really doesn't matter much. John hasn't seen sunlight for days, maybe weeks. He can't be sure. He has lost count.  
He can make out Crane's form against the dark wall. “I don't think you had ever had a crisis, an oh shit moment. You just accepted it, didn't you? Or is it because it's only one person? Not men in general?” Crane leans forward like he wants to look into John's face. “Yes,” he says. “It's him.” And then he gets up and leaves John alone in the dark to wonder what this means for Crane. What it means for John.

~+~  
Crane doesn't come back for days and John misses him. It's stupid and more importantly it's dangerous, but he can't stand the voices in his head. He feels like _things_ are touching him. Caressing his skin. Tearing at his hair and biting at his lips. Like the darkness is moving around him, circling and watching. He knows it's all in his head, but knowing that doesn't help. He can still feel it on his skin.  
Pain and faint pleasure. On some level he knows he's just touch-starved, sensory deprived. He would welcome any kind of contact with another human being. He relishes the warmth of the guard's hands when he takes off John's handcuffs, his closeness, his breath against John's neck. He's hyper aware of all these things and he bites his lip until it bleeds to keep the moan of pleasure in. Every weakness, and he is sure of that, is catalogued to be used against him. Crane knows too much already. 

~+~  
“Let's talk about your father,” Crane says what seems to be weeks later. 

“He's dead,” John answers. 

“I know, John. I read your file. That's what doctors do, so they'll know their patients better. He was shot and you watched it happen. How did you feel back then?” 

“Like I feel now,” John hears himself say. 

“And how's that?” Crane prompts. 

“Helpless,” John admits. 

“Good boy. Now we're making progress.” He gets up and John panics. He can't be alone again. He can't. He struggles against the handcuffs violently. “Now, don't do that. You'll hurt yourself.” Crane comes closer and leans down, cupping John's cheek, gently, oh so fucking gently. And then he squeezes until John thinks he can hear his bones grind together. It hurts so fucking much, John wants to scream. “You are not allowed to hurt yourself, John. It spoils all my fun,” he whispers and releases John's jaw.  
And then John is alone again, with the voices, but he isn't sure anymore they are in his head. 

~+~  
“The thing I don't understand is why didn't you make a move?” Crane asks. 

“What?” John asks. 

“You are clearly not so torn about your man-crush than what's usual for people like you. So why didn't you make a move on the man of your wet dreams?”

John wonders how much he gave away when he wasn't thinking clearly, when he was so desperate for another human voice, for someone to keep the whispering darkness at bay.  
“There is no one,” John answers. 

“Ah, he's dead,” Crane says and then: “I miss him too. I miss him.” 

A part of John wants to kill Crane with his bare hands, a part of him wants to tell Crane all about his messed up feelings for the Batman, how he knew at a young age, how he admired him, how he went to his house, confronted him, but how he never had the nerve, how there never was time to do something about how he felt. How he is feeling. And now he can't anymore. The chance is gone.  
“You killed him,” John says. 

“He did it himself,” Crane corrects and there is something nasty and angry and tender in his voice. Something John can relate to. And it's terrifying that thought, that feeling of belonging, of understanding. He wants to scream, but is afraid if he starts he won't stop. He won't ever be able to stop. 

 

 **~four~**  
John isn't sure if it's him or the meds, the drugs they're giving him. And with them he means Crane. The other two guys are goons. Probably paid and have no idea what Crane is doing here or who John is and they don't care.  
His body is hypersensitive and everything hurts more, every touch feels like more and it's all messed up in his brain.  
When he sleeps he dreams so vividly it scares him. It's like a second reality in which Batman didn't die, in which he comes back. In which John is sitting at the Manor and can feel Wayne's body-heat.  
He dreams about Wayne constantly. About his death, about how he saw him the first time, how realisation hit him (that Wayne is Batman, that John wanted him). John hadn't been really sure until that faithful day Wayne drove up to the orphanage when John had been fourteen. He had been sure afterwards.  
Crane wasn't wrong: John never had a freak out about his sexuality. It would have been stupid, it was such a small thing compared to the clusterfuck that was his life. 

~+~  
“You never really got over the anger, did you John?” Crane asks. John doesn't even react to the needle in his arm anymore. It's like a constant ache, maybe even a part of his body. He shakes his head, because that is such a messed up thought. “Of course you didn't. Who would? Not many boys your age are forced to watch their parents being killed right in front of them,” Crane says.  
Wayne understands that anger, Wayne and only Wayne, John thinks. 

“You can't understand,” John says. 

“Maybe, but I am trying. That is more than your foster-parents did, isn't it?”

John takes a breath and his lungs scream. This is different. “What did you do?” His breath is coming too short, he feels like he's going to suffocate any second now. 

“Calm down John,” Crane says in his friendly distant voice. “It's a new drug I created. Granted not part of your therapy, but there is no one else I could use it on right now. You and the rest of your merry misfits saw to that. I had so much fun under Bane, got so much done in the name of science,” he sighs wistfully.  
Insane, John thinks again. Utterly insane. He slips from the chair and lands hard on his side. It hurts like hell, he bites his lip in the process and it bleeds.  
“Try to think happy thoughts. It might help. But then, maybe not. This drug isn't designed to help people, well at least not those who are forced to take it. I'll be back in a few hours to discuss the results. Try not to faint. That would spoil the experiment and we would have to start again.”  
John hates Crane. Hates him with a passion that is inhuman, if he gets out of here, he's going to kill him. Slowly and he will enjoy it.  
He tries to stay calm, but his lungs protest no matter what. Pain explodes somewhere in his body, he can't even locate where. It spreads like a fire and before he knows it he's screaming. 

~+~  
“It's good to give in to your primal urges from time to time,” Crane whispers against his ear, stroking his hair. He wants to shake it off, but he's too weak. His body is a giant bruise littered with throbbing cuts. 

“I will kill you,” he grits out. 

Crane kisses the top of his head like he just did something right. Like he deserves a reward. He closes his eyes against the feeling, the darkness, but the darkness is still there, taking root inside him, tying to the anger he is caring around for far too long already. 

~+~  
“Why are you still holding on? Why are you still alive? What are you waiting for?” Crane asks and John can detect real curiosity in his voice. “Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining. You are a fascinating patient, but still. Others gave up far sooner,” Crane goes on.  
John can't see him because he can't be bothered to open his eyes. It's too much effort. It's even too much effort on some days to be awake, or take a sip of water. He's lying on the hard concrete floor waiting. But he has no idea for what or whom. He just can't give up. It would feel too much like betrayal.  
So he keeps his mind occupied. Keeps it as sane as he can.  
It's hard staying sane. The walls seem to ooze madness. All the things he knows about the Asylum come back to haunt him when he is alone. All these long hours when Crane is doing only god knows what. The ghosts of people long gone are whispering in his ear. But that's okay, John can work with that, because he knows they aren't real. It's harder to keep the hope at bay. It's harder not to believe in Batman.  
“Oh,” Crane says, crouching down to look at John. John can feel his body-heat. It's so very cold down here and always damp, always dark. John can feel Crane's fingers against his grimy cheek. Crane smells clean. John wants this, wants this piece of normality. “You're waiting for him.”  
John is. He realises as Crane says it. He is waiting for Batman. Waits for Wayne. Insane hope that's what it is..  
“Hope, John,” Crane says, his lips so close John can feel his breath on his skin, “is the cruellest thing of all.”  
Crane might be on to something here, John thinks. 

 

 **~five~**  
Starvation is no fun, but then John is past the point of caring for his body, which should be alarming, but somehow it isn't, which in return should be even more alarming. 

“Five days without food and you're still here, your mind still sharp. Even though you refuse to talk to me. I know you can John.”  
John doesn't open his eyes. There is nothing worth seeing anyway. “I don't like talking to myself, it's not a sane thing to do,” Crane says and puts a needle into John's arm. It doesn't hurt at first and then the pain explodes again and he sits up, his eyes wide open and he's screaming.  
“That's more like it. I wonder, what you are seeing?” Crane whispers into his ear. “Tell me what you're seeing.”  
John shakes his head; he is not going to give up the rest of his tattered mind. 

~+~  
He's seeing a lot of things. Things he thought he wanted, but twisted and wrong. A part of John knows that these things he's seeing coming out of the darkness aren't real. A far darker, more sinister part wishes on some level they were. 

~+~  
The mask is in pieces and the skin under it is torn and blue and wrong. John scoots back until his back hits the wall hard. The pain doesn't really register, but the feeling of being trapped: that does. He's feeling the panic rise inside him. It's clogging up his lungs, his air-pipes, and his mouth. There is no escape.  
The Batman keeps coming and John knows he's going to eat him alive. He is terrified. He is paralysed and he wants out. He's weak too, he has no idea how he even made it to the wall. 

~+~  
He's three years old and convinced there's something lurking in the darkness under his bed. He's curling his toes as close to his body as he can, closing his eyes. If you can't see it, it can't see you. 

“John?” Crane says and John looks up at him. A dark figure in the doorway. He clamps his hands over his mouth and breathes. Counts to ten and then backwards again. 

“Yeah?” he gets out. His voice is thin and shot to hell. Too much screaming. Too much terror in his mind, around him lurking in the darkness. Standing in the door. 

“You're up,” Crane says. His head is cocked. He's curious about that too. John can't answer. Knows no answer will satisfy Crane.  
When John dies, and it's a when now not an if anymore, because John is sure he will die here. No one knows where he is, there is no one who would even care that he's gone missing. When John dies here, Crane will take his body and cut him open just to satisfy his curiosity and maybe, just maybe, he will preserve John's brain in a jar. His eyes staring out forever unseeing. John shudders.  
Crane comes closer, carefully, slowly like John is a wild animal – and he's felt like that sometimes, but not lately. Lately he's only felt the pain and the terror and the urge to see Crane, hear Crane, because Crane is the only thing that John can be sure is real. 

~+~  
“What did you see, John?” Crane asks. He's stroking a moist finger over John's lips that are cracked and dry.  
John flicks his tongue out. He doesn't want to die here. He doesn't want to give Crane more of his mind, his secrets, his sanity. It's a lost battle. 

“The cowl,” John whispers and Crane nods, holds the glass of water to John's lips. John takes a careful sip. 

“Of course. You would see him. What is he doing?” 

“Coming-” he takes a deep breath, “coming towards me,” John gets out. 

Crane strokes his hair. “Good boy, that wasn't too bad, was it?”  
John shakes his head. He feels like there is not much left of him. Not much left Crane could try to pull out of him. Soon he will be hollow. A shell and what will Crane do then? 

~+~  
There are things John is afraid of. One is that his mask slips, one is that he won't be able to keep the anger in and just snaps. Does something so horrible that there won't be a path back he could take.  
He's seeing that. He's seeing it while Crane rambles on and on and on about Batman and Bane and things John has no idea about. Chemicals and the human body and brains. He turns his head a bit and watches the shadows on the wall. The dark is never really just dark. There is always something darker lurking under the surface. The shadows behind Crane are a mess, with ten hands and three heads. Sharp teeth, tentacles. Big, torn wings. Bat-wings.  
John swallows. All his fears are coming back to Batman. 

“Are you even listening John?”  
John can't be bothered to answer that. He feels himself slipping. The pain, the starvation, the sensory deprivation and over-stimulation, it's taking a toll. 

“Let me die,” he says softly. 

“Oh John, that is not my decision. It never was. It's yours. You alone decide how long you want to endure this. Whatever it is you're seeing,” Crane answers gently.  
John thinks Crane is a liar. 

~+~  
“There is no point in hoping John,” Crane says. “Are you listening?” he shakes John a bit and John nods or something, he isn't sure, but it seems to satisfy Crane. “Yes, you are.”  
He strokes the no doubt filthy hair from John's forehead and whispers: “You need to accept that, you need to make it your mantra John. Repeat it for me?”  
John doesn't want to, but he's so tired. Tired of the pain and whispers and darkness, tired of fighting, tired of holding on. Tired of hoping.  
“Come on John, I know you can,” Crane says. 

“There is no point.” he stops, takes a shaky breath, Crane is still stroking his head, “no point in hoping.”

“Good boy. It won't be long now,” Crane says and leans down to plant a soft kiss on John's forehead. John can barely feel it. 

“Thank you,” John whispers and then he's alone again with the dripping, oozing darkness. With Batman's shadow looking at him with disgust and hunger. Creeping closer, engulfing him, suffocating him.  
John lets the darkness take him. 

 

 **~six~**  
When John opens his eyes he nearly chokes on the disappointment of still being alive. His breathing is shallow, but it doesn't hurt. His body aches. Really aches.. His head is fuzzy. More meds, he thinks. More meds. Meds that make him numb. It's better than the alternative, he guesses.  
The room is still dark as the night, but the ground is soft. His brain registers this in seconds, before a shadow falls over him and he screams. 

~+~  
The cowl is broken, he thinks, struggling to leave the dream, nightmare, vision behind.  
He looks around carefully. Still so much darkness around him. Darkness and dampness and water dripping somewhere.  
This is not his cell. He is somewhere else. Did Crane move him? Move operations? And if he did, where is he now?  
He tries to sit up, but his arms won't support him. So he looks at the ceiling, or rather the darkness where the ceiling should be. It seems endless. Something about this place seems familiar to John, but he can't place it. His brain can't process all the things he's feeling. His body, the cuts, the aches, the bruises. His surroundings. A part of him is waiting for Crane to come and make it all better. He misses Crane's voice. 

~+~  
Someone is sitting close to him. Close to the bed he's lying on. He knows now that it's a bed, he hasn't felt one under him in what seems like months, but his brain still translates the feeling right.  
He scoots away from the presence, he knows it's not Crane (he smells different) and the devil you know is better than the one you don't. He knows what Crane can do to him, knows what Crane will do to him, he has no idea of this person's agenda. 

“John,” a voice says and John knows that voice, because he knows that person. Always knew that person, will always know that person like he knows himself. 

“I dreamed about you. You were dead,” John whispers and it doesn't say anything about the real horrors he's seen. But then John doesn't have the strength or the words to describe what 'you were dead in my dreams' really means.  
Wayne grabs his hands and he flinches, bites his lip to keep the scream in. Crane is the only one who can touch him and this is not Crane, but John doesn't know, doesn't know he wants to be touched by any other person right now – or ever. 

Wayne lets go immediately. “You need to eat something-”

“I wanted to die,” John says, softly, because if he doesn't say it now he won't say it anymore and Wayne needs to know this. Needs to know what kind of person he left the cowl to. 

There is silence and then Wayne says: “I wanted to kill him.”  
John closes his eyes. It's enough. 

~+~  
Recovery is a shit-load of nightmares and self-reproach. Waking up screaming or moaning and whimpering. It's embarrassing and it makes John angry. Makes him want to lash out. His senses are confused, everything shot to hell. He can only sleep when heavily medicated and he hates that. He doesn't want any more meds, drugs, or needles in his arm.  
His arm looks like a junkie's.  
He is too thin and looks barely alive. He hates looking at himself and wonders how Wayne can bear it. How he can look at John now. What he sees now in John. 

~+~  
“What did you do with him?” John asks some three weeks in. He's still weak, he still hates looking at himself in the mirror, but he's getting better. He can walk around the cave on his own two legs.  
Wayne keeps his distance and John isn't sure he wants it, but then he isn't sure about a lot of fucking things these days. 

Wayne doesn't look at him when he answers. “I let him rot there for days and then called Gordon.”  
John doesn't ask if Wayne beat Crane up (chances are high), if he left any food (probably not, but just enough water to survive), if he thought long and hard about not calling Gordon. 

“Thanks,” John says. It's screwed up and he knows it, but it needs to be said. 

“You-” Wayne stops and turns to look at him. “You are welcome,” he finishes with something like defeat or despair in his voice.  
The lengths he goes to for people he cares about, John thinks.  
It's scary as fuck and exhilarating to know that Wayne, that Batman, cares about him enough to contemplate murder. 

 

 **~seven~**  
“You let people think you're dead,” John says. He's feeling better. Every day a bit more. Every day his strength is coming back, his sanity; well...he has issues. He always had issues, but now he has more of them. Maybe that's what makes you a vigilante. 

“The city needs someone else, someone who can still give it their all.” 

John laughs and it doesn't sound amused, it doesn't sound like a laugh should at all. He thinks it sounds cruel. “I can't.” 

“John-”

“I can't!” He takes a deep breath, looking around the cave. He is safe here, he is buried here. This will weigh him down. Like it weighed down Wayne. This will crush him. This fragile thing that he became while Crane had him in his clutches: he had been utterly helpless. He can feel the darkness moving in his mind like a river, finding ways to slip inside everyday situations. He can see it whenever he closes his eyes: oozing down the walls and slithering closer. He can see it when he watches the city on the monitors. 

“What did you see?” Wayne asks.

John balls his hands to fists. “It wasn't what he dosed you with.”

“I know. I saw bats. I saw him, I was terrified-”

“Still, you fought it, you got home, you got a cure-”

“Mister Fox did,” Wayne says. 

“It doesn't matter! It wasn't the same thing. It wasn't even only one drug-”

“What did you see?” He repeats. 

John bites his lip and keeps quiet. There is no way he can put it in words. And the only word he can put it in is: you. But what would that even tell Wayne?  
“Things moving in the darkness,” he settles on because he knows Wayne won't let it go. He just isn't that kind of person. 

“What kind of things?” 

“Dead things!” John spits out. 

“John-”

“And the darkness. It was moving, it was alive, all encompassing, shifting, eating at my bones. And then there was Crane. The only real thing, the only living thing and he was _caressing_ my skin!” He takes another shuddering breath. He has no idea what he is doing, except, yes he does know what he is doing. He tells Wayne all these nightmares, these terrors to keep the one from him that matters.  
And that shuts Wayne up. Maybe because he thinks there is an implication, John doesn't care. He can think what he wants right now, if it shuts him up. If it makes him stop questioning John, then he can think Crane had molested him. He can't be bothered to care. 

~+~  
“Why did you come back?” John asks. He is maybe going a bit crazy inside the cave. It's big enough, but Wayne is the only one who he can talk to. Everyone else is a character on the screens. 

“You were missing-”

“How did you even know?” John cuts in. 

“I have means and ways. It took me too long to figure it out-”

“At least you did. I don't blame you. I was stupid and careless. They snatched me right from the street,” John is humiliated all over again just thinking about it. And Batman left him the cowl. What a joke. 

“No one is born a vigilante,” Wayne says. His voice is softer than normal. It makes John look at him; it makes John remember how he had wanted him when he was barely fifteen. Makes John remember that he never really got over that crush. 

“I wish you wouldn't care,” he hears himself say, because it would be easier if Wayne wouldn't. 

“John-”

“I wanted to be you,” John cuts in sharply, “I wanted to be like Batman. When I was younger, and then when I met you, when I saw you and knew you were – like me,” he shrugs; he has no idea what he's even trying to say. “But I am not you. I never will be-”

“I don't want you to be me. I don't even want you to be Batman.”

“What then? What did you see that made you decide to give me this? To hand over the legacy, to make me the heir to the cowl?” 

“Anger and darkness and faith,” Wayne says. 

“The anger is still there, will never go away. The darkness, there is certainly more of that now, but I am not sure about the faith,” John answers. 

“You held on to it. All that time in Arkham. You held on to hope. You believed in something.”  
I believed in you John thinks. I always only believed in you. Even if no one else did.  
And John still believes in Batman, still believes in Wayne. But Wayne can't be Batman anymore and someone has to step up to that plate. John thought he was that person, now he is not too sure any more. And more than for the torture, the pain, the panic and humiliation, he hates Crane for the doubt he planted inside his head. 

“I gave up-”

“You didn't. You did what you could and you did not give up.” 

“I wanted to die!” 

“I wanted to die too. After Rachel. When I was walking the manor like a ghost.” Wayne stops and John waits him out. “We don't like to acknowledge it, but under the cowl we're human.”

Hope, John thinks, is the most sadistic thing. It can tear you apart. It can crush you or it can make you do amazing things. And no one is immune to it. Not even the Batman. Wayne was hoping he could find someone who would take his place and he had his hopes shattered on the concrete of reality, of humanity. And now, would John do it again? Like Dent did? 

~+~  
“It had been you,” John says, over coffee the next morning because brutal honesty deserves to be repaid in kind. And who else would get this? Only Wayne could understand his darkness. 

“What?” 

“All the things I've seen, all the things he talked about, we talked about, it all came back to you.” 

“Batman.” 

John shakes his head. He isn't sure. Maybe, but then Wayne and Batman are one person. Two sides of a coin. The good and the ugly. “Yes,” he says. 

“Dead?”

“Yes,” he repeats. “I waited for you. I hoped you would find me.” 

“I did.” 

“You did,” John answers. 

“You believed in me,” Wayne says. 

“I always believed in you, always will and it will be my downfall.” 

“You won't fail. You will learn by trial and error. I will see to that.” 

John looks at him. Hard. “You're going to stay? Here?” 

“For a while,” Wayne answers. 

John nods. It'll have to do.


End file.
